Six feet, two ten, blond and brown, needs corrective lenses.
Relaxed expression, nothing ominous in the eyes.
True to Shantee Moloney’s description, lank, pale strands obscured Bright’s brow, draping his ears and fanning his shoulders.
The beard was a broad, brown sheet, pelting his face from Adam’s apple to the bottoms of his eye sockets.
Nothing to see
Art of the misdirect.
Did that explain Bright’s lie about not eating animals? Manipulating Shantee Moloney, but to what end? Bright had never received a penny for his work at the shelter.
Love of the game or a need to feel virtuous?
Or both.
All that hair; nature’s costume.
I thought of High Plains drifter duds. Plaid cap, old man’s shuffle, conspicuous wheels. It all added up to clever theater.
In Kat Shonsky’s situation, the Bentley would’ve been enough to lower her guard but I wondered if the killer had gone further.
Angry man with a thing for A-lines and heels, still seething at Kat’s ridicule. What sweeter revenge than to stalk her in drag?
I pictured the big black car gliding by as she fretted in her Mustang. Passenger window sliding down, revealing a driver in a bouffant wig, designer dress, maybe a discreet string of pearls.
That extra touch.
A pretty, diaphanous
Kat’s driver’s license – the symbol of her identity – had been wedged in her private parts.
Some killers take souvenirs, other leave them. It’s always about a message.
The message Kat’s killer had delivered was
Kat. An animal name.
Too perfect to resist.
Milo phoned just before two p.m., yawned a greeting followed by a bout of coughing.
I said, “Rock-and-roll pneumonia or boogie-woogie flu?”
“Oh, man, it’s way too early for humor.”
“It’s the afternoon.”
“Feels like daybreak… Jesus, you’re right. Did a whole lot more nothing watching Tony, got home at six and crashed till an emergency call jolted me up at seven. Bradley Maisonette’s parole officer. ‘You sounded frantic, Lieutenant, so I thought I’d catch you early.’ I’m on two cylinders, bastard’s gloating. And what’s the big news: Bradley’s been
“Addict’s excursions,” I said.
“Doesn’t sound like a guy who digs art museums and thee
“He works?”
“Panhandles, sells his blood. P.O. diagnoses the basic problem as ‘low self-esteem.’”
“Everyone’s a therapist,” I said.
“I finally got the idiot to agree to pretend to search for him. Thanks for Cardenas’s e-mail. You get a chance to talk to the animal lady?”
I summarized the conversation with Shantee Moloney.
“Small dogs,” he said. “As in Leonora’s missing pooches?”
“If Dale was behind the Ojo Negro murders,” I said, “it would be nice to think he took them as pets.”
“Loves dogs, hates Sis.”
“Wears hemp shoes and eats meat on the sly.”
He sang the chorus of Lou Christie’s “Two Faces Have I.”
I said, “He’s also the right size for Ella’s killer, the cowboy, and Kat’s cross-dresser.”
“And size matters… loves the great cities, huh? Gets hold of major inheritance, travels the world, settles into L.A.?”
“Maybe it’s the weather.” I gave him my woman-with-a-scarf theory. “Society lady in two hundred grand worth of car – why not? Now all we need is Dale to come waltzing through the door confessing.”
“Short of that, how about this: One of the cities Bright mentioned to Moloney was New York. The chief’s old turf. Why not start there and see if any black-car murders show up? Or if Bright left some kind of paper trail from San Francisco.”
He didn’t answer.
“There’s a problem?”
“No,” he said. “On the contrary. A chance for His Beneficence to demonstrate his commitment.”
“You doubt him?”
“So far he’s been as righteous as a politician can be, but I’m like that bumper sticker,
Three hours later, he was at my front door, freshly shaved, wearing a bright blue shirt under a coarse gray herringbone jacket, a green tie patterned with brown ukuleles, khakis, bubble-toe gray oxfords with red crepe soles.
Usually, he beelines for the kitchen. This time he stood in the door, eyes dancing, lips curled in a scary scimitar I knew to be a smile.
“His Excellency woke someone up and presto, we got records from the N.Y. Housing Department rolls. Mr. Dale Bright was never a property owner but his name does show up on a petition eight years ago. Converting an industrial building to condos.”
“Pro or con?”
“Pro.”
I said, “One year after he inherits, he’s in his favorite American city, trying to break into the real estate market?”
He loped to my office, logged on to my computer, typed in
Six hits flashed, all culled from newspaper accounts, all variants on the same theme.
He called up the
Vanished Couple Condo-Complexity?
